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Lockneed breakthough in fusion reactors.

For most proposed designs the primary danger is neutrons at a much smaller level than fission reactors.

Of course the only fusion reactor we've actually made would be the semi-controlled hydrogen bomb.
 
There have been so many Nuclear Fusion false breakthoughs that I am waiting for more proof before getting excited.
 
Here's a prototype.

47625440137c84cb3.jpg
 
paiute said:
That generating heat energy from nuclear potential energy will overwhelm the earth's ability to shed it, and we turn the world into a well-lit desert planet.
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The energy generated by human energy usage is several orders of magnitude less than the greenhouse gas radiative imbalance.
 
Lennart Hyland said:
What exactly are the dangers with fusion reactors?
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Mainly neutron activation of the device. With careful choice of materials this can be minimized. This aspect is being addressed at the MAST reactor and will be continued at ITER. There is an additional issue with the use of Tritium. It has a short half-life but is readily absorbed in human tissues. It's nothing like the scale of a problem that Fission reactors and waste exhibit.

If the containment fails there are no major problems, the density of the plasma is so low that the casing temperature doesn't rise to dangerous levels (though there may be activation issues).
 
Lennart Hyland said:
What exactly are the dangers with fusion reactors?
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Similar to green-house gases, fusion reactors emit small amounts of gas
that, as it slowly builds up in the atmosphere, changes the timbre of the
human voice making ordinary communication impossible to understand.
 
arthwollipot said:
Strictly speaking, they do produce energy. They just don't produce more energy than it takes to run them.
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I think they broke that barrier last year, albeit barely.

Wikipedia said:
In September 2013 the NIF was widely claimed to have achieved a milestone in controlled fusion, by successfully initiating a reaction that resulted in the release of more energy than the fuel absorbed. However, reports shortly after[100] indicated it was still far short of creating a self-sustaining reaction. Nonetheless, work published in January 2014 confirmed that more energy was being released — even if only for a fraction of a second — than was required to produce that release.[101] The process will need to be made more efficient to yield commercially viable amounts of energy.[102]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power
 
Two extra bits....

They issed patent papers covering aspects of it Oct 9th

They apparently are using their own money....that puts a twist in the story.
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:boggled:

Moved thos over from weaning us off fossil fuels.

If it had been just about any other company on the planet than Lockheed....
Why would they EVER put their credibility on the line......???

DoE has deep pockets for energy independence and you can bet Lockheed has picked them regularly but it's apparently Lockheeds own coin.

This is the best article I've seen and indicates 5 years to prototype.....I suspect the confusion arises in his comment 1 generation each year. They are confident of the lab results that they are on the correct track.

Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details
Lockheed Martin aims to develop compact reactor prototype in five years, production unit in 10
Oct 15, 2014 Guy Norris | Aviation Week & Space Technology
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http://aviationweek.com/technology/skunk-works-reveals-compact-fusion-reactor-details

As to efficiency.....off the charts...

The 100-MW unit would provide sufficient power for up to 80,000 homes in a power-hungry U.S. city and is also “enough to run a ship,” he notes.

Lockheed estimates that less than 25 kg (55 lb.) of fuel would be required to run an entire year of operations. The fuel itself is also plentiful.

Deuterium is produced from sea water and is therefore considered unlimited, while tritium is “bred” from lithium. “We already mine enough lithium to supply a worldwide fleet of reactors, so with tritium you never have too much built up, and that’s what keeps it safe. Tritium would be a health risk if there were enough released, but it is safe enough in small quantities. You don’t need very much to run a reactor because it is a million times more powerful than a chemical reaction,” McGuire notes.
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This is best comment of all....

Preliminary simulations and experimental results “have been very promising and positive,” McGuire says. “The latest is a magnetized ion confinement experiment, and preliminary measurements show the behavior looks like it is working correctly.
We are starting with the plasma confinement, and that’s where we are putting most of our effort.
One of the reasons we are becoming more vocal with our project is that we are building up our team as we start to tackle the other big problems. We need help and we want other people involved. It’s a global enterprise, and we are happy to be leaders in it.”
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Fusion has always confronted the containment demon.....if they are confident enough to put company credibility at risk....there is truly something in this.

This all makes sense and there has been many strides forward in materials science and manufacturing to make this viable.

It's the scaling down that is stunning from my viewpoint.

Overall, McGuire says the Lockheed design “takes the good parts of a lot of designs.” It includes the high-beta configuration, the use of magnetic field lines arranged into linear ring “cusps” to confine the plasma and “the engineering simplicity of an axisymmetric mirror,” he says. The “axisymmetric mirror” is created by positioning zones of high magnetic field near each end of the vessel so that they reflect a significant fraction of plasma particles escaping along the axis of the CFR. “We also have a recirculation that is very similar to a Polywell concept,” he adds, referring to another promising avenue of fusion power research. A Polywell fusion reactor uses electromagnets to generate a magnetic field that traps electrons, creating a negative voltage, which then attracts positive ions. The resulting acceleration of the ions toward the negative center results in a collision and fusion.
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As mentioned earlier the confinement and materials are the key.

But questions about the positioning of the superconductors remain.....

Biggest question ....why go out on a limb now???:confused:
 
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macdoc said:
.
If it had been just about any other company on the planet than Lockheed....
Why would they EVER put their credibility on the line......???
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I've been looking at this since the Aviation Week article, and while I'm hopeful...what? I mean I really wanted to work for Lockheed and am a big fan of a lot of their stuff...

If Lockheed says five years then you can expect it in fifteen and a billion dollars over budget.

There are plenty of possible explanations for why they'd come out with these releases besides them honestly thinking they can do it just as they say.
 
That is a problem with Lockheed but I still think that's very risky behavior for them.

Meanwhile....fusion progress breaking out all over...

Z machine makes progress toward nuclear fusion

By Daniel Clery 10 October 2014 2:00 pm 57 Comments
Scientists are reporting a significant advance in the quest to develop an alternative approach to nuclear fusion. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, using the lab’s Z machine, a colossal electric pulse generator capable of producing currents of tens of millions of amperes, say they have detected significant numbers of neutrons—byproducts of fusion reactions—coming from the experiment. This, they say, demonstrates the viability of their approach and marks progress toward the ultimate goal of producing more energy than the fusion device takes in.
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more
http://news.sciencemag.org/physics/2014/10/z-machine-makes-progress-toward-nuclear-fusion
 
Can't really see Lockheeds proposed reactor being mobile on a truck. I think they were only giving an impresson of size of the reactor itself. It's still going to need cryo-plant, neutral partical beam systems, power supplies for the containment magnets, steam generators, turbines and generators, switch gear to make the grid connection, tritium recovery and storage, not to forget a somewhat large containment structure...
 
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